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So this year Electric Forest decided that one weekend was not enough, so they are making it back to back weekends. With so many years of sell out weekends the staff decided it was best to create a second weekend with different artists than the first weekend.

Week 1

Week 2

With artists still to be named the suspense and wait has begun! Artists in white will only appear for the one weekend, while artists in yellow will be their for both weekends. The Tickets went on sale yesterday for loyalty members and will continue to drop throughout the next month. Week 1 features more jam bands and trance music, while week 2 features more heavy EDM and trap music.
Forest offers a layaway program in which people who can not afford to pay for their full tickets right away can put a down payment and then pay every month following until the weekend. This is something that music festivals have been trying to offer for everyone. These are not cheap concerts and they for sure take a chunk of money out of your pockets.

A website full of beautiful images from past years, as well as ideas for future years. Forest does a great job of showing you exactly what you are paying for. With a How to Visit the Forest page, they offer advice for rookies who are going to be attending forest for their first year. This will put a lot of people at ease not going into the forest blind as too what they are about to embrace.

Electric Forest is also offering some safe options this year, Camp Traction will be held for those who choose to experience the forest clean and sober! There will also be The Electric Forces Group Camp, which is an opportunity for Military Veterans, and their friends and families, to camp together at Electric Forest. The Women’s Group Camp is for those who identify as women who are camping alone, or who are seeking an experience that builds community with other Forest Family women.

So this week I won’t really be writing about a music festival or something involving a direct festival but instead, some of the local talent in West Virginia that partake in the festival life style.

Jam Bands

DJs

Rappers

Live Painters

Flow Arts Club

Here in Morgantown in particular, we have a very diverse group of people who live in town. With that comes a very diverse music scene, although it is heavily dominated by jam bands and DJs. Morgantown still has many things to offer. Mainstage Morgantown and 123 Pleasant Street are two of Morgantown’s concert venues. Mainstage hosts a variety of concerts featuring mainly DJs but also bringing in jam bands, rappers, and even heavy metal concerts to town. While 123 Pleasant mainly sticks to just jam bands.

Within Morgantown itself a very talented artist, Evan Groseclose. Evan has been live painting at festivals across america for the last year now. Evan is 23 years old and graduated from WVU last year with degree in agricultural sciences. Recently Evan has created a new logo for Mainstage as well as made many appearances at Mainstage shows to paint live art and sell some of his work after the shows.

“Morgantown has been a great place to launch my painting career, with so many friends and people into the festival scene it has made selling my work much easier,” said Evan who now lives in Morgantown and supports himself off his live painting shows that he travels too every week.

With an Instagram page full of details as to which festival you can find him at next, Evan has launched himself onto the scene with the help of his Morgantown festival family. His most recent big accomplishments were headlining at Nightmare and UpNorth festival.

Another local name catching a lot of attention is a band that goes by the name of The Manor and Friends. Formed in 2013, The Manor and Friends come from three core friends, Nate Morgan, Ivan Gonzalez, and Nick Adams. The three friends all lived in Dadisman Hall their freshmen year, and then moved into the McLane Manor. Which is an apartment complex in which they took their name from. After numerous nights jamming on the porch and attracting a crowd before you knew it The Manor and Friends were a thing! They have grown over the last four years and have had sold out shows at both 123 Pleasant and Mainstage. Opening up for names like Big Something and playing at over six festivals this summer around the east coast, The Manor and Friends have created a name for themselves.

“We are planning on releasing our first album in 2017, we’ve been working really hard on it for the last year and a half now and I think we are almost finally done,” said Nate Morgan the lead singer of The Manor and Friends.

I’ve known these three guys since I was a freshmen with them in Dadisman and they have been dedicated to music and festivals since the day I met them. The town has rallied behind them and so have the venues, as The Manor and Friends often do things to benefit the city and culture itself.

As I am sure it is not a surprised to most of you but this year festivals have been rather Anti-Trump, even though he is now our president. One festival in particular was the week before the election down in Louisiana. Voodoo festival has caught major attention because not of the political propaganda that was outside the venue or because of the totems inside the venue. This was because of the artists, they were the ones with a voice that could be heard. They choose to finally speak their minds and voice their opinions.

Over the course of the weekend at least two artists, one a rapper, one a DJ, led their audiences in anti-Trump chants. Day 3 closer, Arcade Fire introduced several of their songs with political messages, coming just short of naming Trump as the target. They highlighted during their set that Trump has been playing on people’s fear, as if Hilary wasn’t either. Both politicians this year have had more hateful ad campaigns then ever before. So this was a little bit irrelevant, however the real artist that made some noise was Tool.

He came out 5 minutes for his set but came out to the slow mellow beat of Third Eye. they hauled out the title track from their debut EP, which was released the same year we elected the first President Clinton. “Opiate” was originally a song about powerful religious leaders, but in the Year of Trump it became a powerful warning about authoritarianism.

Voodoo Fest alone was clearly not enough to change the outcome of the election, but was a great demonstration of how to voice your opinions. With an extremely young and volatile crowd these subliminal messages as well as in your face messages were meant to influence you.

Every Music Festival has some form of security before entry. Security searches items that people are
bringing in and also searches people themselves to make sure nothing illegal is being smuggled inside. This basic form of security is what festival management hopes will keep everyone safe and having a good time. As of the last couple years festivals have had to create banned items list which consists of basic items that the common person would even know is banned and then some other items that come up that aren’t so normal.

Ultra Music Festival has been one of the biggest festivals to currently create a banned list. With Ultra Music Festival taking place in different countries around the world it was very important to make a banned item list and stick firmly to this. With shows in locations across the world having a universal list makes it easier for everyone to understand just what they can and can not bring.

Some of the things that have made this list that are more unique are stuffed animals, face masks, pacifiers, glow sticks and even umbrellas. Other festivals such as Dancefestopia and EDC have also started to adapt a banned item list so that people can understand beforehand what they can and can not bring.
Now why are things like stuffed animals, face masks, and pacifiers banned? Well there have been lots of different reasons that they have given but generally the number one reason is drugs. They don’t want people doing drugs, hiding that they are on drugs, or smuggling drugs in. The stuffed animals have been said to be used for a style of totem where you can find your friends easier but also has been described as a way to stop a bad trip, just hug your cute cuddly friend and what could go bad at that point? Or is the teddy bear used to smuggle drugs inside? Are you really going to cut open someones stuffed animal? It is too difficult to actually tell so festivals have started to banned them completely.

So face masks and pacifiers, what’s the deal with both of these? Well generally people have used these as ways to hide excessive jaw gnawing so that no one can see you are under the influence of something. The security also struggles to identify people on cameras after fights or crimes have been committed. Another big thing about the face masks has been that people rub Vicks Vapor. This has been used by the rave community to further the rush and help themselves breath when they are struggling. Pacifiers have also been an issue because people look like giant babies. Ultra Music Festival actually was so upset they changed the age of their music festivals to 18+ so that hopefully an older crowd would sway away from this childish behavior.

Recently Fest300 came out with their annual list of amazing Halloween festivals to attend around the world. However this week were just going to focus on some of the east coast festivals in which some of us can actually attend. 3 of the thirteen festivals that made the list this year were located on the eastern side of the United States while 9 out of the thirteen were in the United States alone. America always has had lots of Halloween pride but being host to 9/13 festivals this year is great. This list does not limit itself to just music festivals but all festivals around the world. Here were three good ones from the east coast.

Festival of the Dead in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem isn’t just the home of famous witch trials anymore. These days, it’s also the host of the Salem Festival of the Dead, which features 9 huge events that cover everything from ghost hunting, to speaking to the dead, to a psychic fair and witchcraft expo to ritual transformation. The ball this year features two different floors of music, dancing and food.

Suwannee Hulaween in Live Oak, Florida is sure to be one of the best music festivals in all of America on Halloween weekend. Headliners include My Morning Jacket, Big Gigantic, a DJ set from Disclosure, STS9, Logic, Umphrey’s McGee, Claude VonStroke, and too many more to list. In the Spirit of Suwannee Music Park, is 800 acres of Old Oak Trees, with campgrounds, a lake, and white sand beaches. There is a main venue field already built into the grounds and a natural amphitheater for the two alternating main stages all weekend. And to add to that there are fire-fueled iron sculptures, live painting, projection mapping, lasers, and lights, which all bring the forest life at night.

The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze in Upstate New York is sure to be sold out yet again. As hundreds of skilled carvers gather to create more than 7,000 jack-o-lanterns for a mesmerizing walkthrough experience at the historic Van Cortlandt Manor in upstate New York. Organizers truly create a spectacle all with pumpkins and lights. With three nights of food, music and pumpkins this festival is for all ages. This year features a full Halloween soundtrack from recording artist Richard Christy.

Over the last month DJ Getter has been on his Wat The Frick tour which is the first tour for the DJ in which he is on a tour bus, is the main headliner and places at a different small venue every night basically. With this in mind a lot of things can go wrong playing at these small venues with inexperienced opening DJs, improper security, and travel issues due to the road, weather and the bus. With all this in mind it is hard to imagine that something wouldn’t go wrong.

Redlining the mixer is a big issue for DJs around the world. Redlining the mixer refers to the volume level at which each DJ is playing at as the night progresses on. So the local opener who goes on before Getter and his friends is meant to play at a lower volume level so that he doesn’t use up all the loud noise making the headliner sound louder and even better when he finally goes on. Getter got into some serious twitter beef over opening DJs redlining his mixer in back to back shows and took to twitter. Numerous other DJs attacked him and told him to remember when he was a local DJ opening and for a couple days twitter was full of drama in the EDM world.

Was it wrong for Getter to get upset about the local openers stepping their boundaries? Was it even the openers doing it or was it the smaller venues with less experienced workers on the sound board? Or was it even his friends who opened for him and may of increased the volume themselves? Regardless I would be upset if this was my first tour and it wasn’t going as exactly as I wanted it too. He wants the tour to be perfect and he wants all his fans to have a good time. It makes this hard for him to do when he can’t do his job as he planned too.

Setting a good example for the next generation begins with us. It starts with the DJs and those who attend the shows. Whatever happens at these shows reflects on our generation and reflects on what we stand for. If we continue to have drug overdoses and physical or sexual violence at these shows and festivals then all we are showing people is that we are a disgusting group of people. If we continue to trash the venues we are allowed to use then we will have no venues for the future generation to have.

The festivals that we attend are more then just cool venues, lights, music and one big party, it is you and it is me. It is all of us working together to have the best time possible. This means that sometimes you need to speak up and have a voice. The police and security in Europe have started to take this issue so serious they have been putting “Don’t Grope” on the wristbands when people enter the festival. This has been used to raise awareness in the community that there is a serious problem. If you ever see someone getting taken advantage of either go help them out or find one of the hundred security guards standing around and get them help. Little things like this set good examples for the future generation of music festival attendees.

We have a very big number of young and upcoming DJs all under the age of 21 that have been watching the DJs ahead of them and mimicking their every move. DJs like Marshmello who takes time after all of his shows to take pictures with his fans. Marshmello has made sure his fans know he loves them back and wants to give as much to them as he can. He never ceases to amaze and has only been preforming live since Halloween of last year. This is the type of example DJs should be setting.

Pro tip: after every set I go wash my face, catch my breath, and then come back and take photos with everyone who’s still there #ritualtour

“marshmellomusic:It’s our job to set positive examples for the next generation and guide them. 🙏🏼 “

This is the type of DJ we want to see in the public eye. These are the type of actions we want to see, there is no need to throw the party lifestyle into the face of the people when you can simply give back and show love to the fans that show you so much love on a daily basis.